Tucker stared at Misty blankly. She was speaking to him but he hadn’t heard a word. “What? I’m sorry, I’m distracted.”
They were at the funeral home for a brief viewing before the funeral for Billy Hart. Misty had been thoughtful enough to accompany him even though he wasn’t sure where the heck they were at in their stilted relationship. Jolene had come down the day after Billy had died and had put together a funeral for the following day. All three Hart women had wanted it over and done with, and he couldn’t blame them. He admired the fact that they were there at all. He didn’t think Billy deserved any of their time. There was almost no one in attendance. The funeral director had made sure it didn’t turn into a circus of gawkers wanting pictures of Jolene, so all attendees had been personally approved by the Harts.
Which meant it was only some of the girls’ friends from high school, Carlene’s old neighbor, and Billy’s cousin. It was a sad ending to a selfish life. Billy’s girlfriend had been on the list, then removed after Jolene’s team notified her the woman had been reaching out to paparazzi to strike a deal for pictures of the country star at the funeral.
“I said you should go to her,” Misty said.
She nodded to Elle, who was at the front of the room, by the casket, looking pale and thin in her black dress.
Tucker’s need to comfort Elle was palpable. He wanted to wrap her into a hug. But Misty had been big enough to come with him and he wasn’t going to do that. Abandon her to go to Elle. He had offered Elle his comfort when he had held her on the couch Saturday night. “It’s fine,” he said. “She’s with her family.”
Misty sighed. “I know this isn’t the time or place but I think we need to talk, Tucker.”
“Hm?” That got his attention. He broke his gaze from Elle and glanced over at Misty. “About what?”
Her expression was troubled. “I see the way you look at her. It’s not just concern. But like I said, this isn’t the time or the place.”
That made him wary. He didn’t like someone bringing up a subject then refusing to discuss it further. It was a pet peeve. “If you have something you want to talk about, talk. You brought it up.”
There was a pause where she fiddled with the cross that she always wore around her neck. “Do you love her?”
“Who, Elle?” Of course that’s who she meant. It was a stupid rhetorical question so he didn’t wait for her to respond. “Yes, I do. I’ve always cared about her.” He crossed his arms over his chest in his suit. He hated wearing a suit. The room was quiet, and he agreed with Misty—this wasn’t the time or place to have this conversation. But they were in it, so he wasn’t going to lie. He did love Elle.
“That’s not what I’m asking and you know it,” she murmured. “Don’t play dumb. It isn’t your style.”
He raised his eyebrows. “So what are you really asking?”
“Are you in love with her? Do you want to be with her?”
That was an impossible question. “It’s not like that.”
“What is it like?” Misty didn’t look furious, that wasn’t her style. But she did stare up at him, frustrated, her face not as serene as it normally was. There was something in her expression that he didn’t recognize, that made him embarrassed. He wasn’t being fair to her and he knew it. She kept coming back around and he kept letting her because he enjoyed her company. He was taking advantage of her uncertainty and that made him an ass. He felt heat rise in his cheeks and he had to break eye contact with her.
Tucker looked forward, so he could see Elle. She had her arm around her mother and she looked tired, but she was dry-eyed. She was both fragile and strong. A flower with a strong stem. “It’s like she is just a part of my life. Always has been, always will be.”
“They say that men and woman can’t truly be platonic friends, and I guess that’s true.”
Elle noticed Tucker watching her and she gave him a wan smile. Suddenly, he realized that this was dangerous, to be talking like this with Misty here. He smiled back at Elle then looked down at Misty. “Come on, let’s go.” He had her go up to the Harts with him and he offered his condolences and hugged all three women again. Then he told Elle he would call her later.
Normally he wanted to get the hell out of a funeral because of the overwhelming grief from the family and friends. But this time, he wanted to escape his own suffocating thoughts and feelings. He held the door open for Misty and stepped outside after her, grateful for the cold air on his hot face.
She tied the belt of her coat tighter and pulled up her hood, enveloping her blond hair. “Tucker,” she said as he moved quickly across the parking lot.
“Yeah?” He knew what she was going to say before she even said it. He didn’t even have to look at her. He heard it in her voice. It was sharp and agitated.
“This isn’t going to work. I don’t mind sharing you with a baby but I can’t share you with Elle. I just can’t.”
Damn it. Why did this always happen? He heard Kara’s voice again, accusing him of putting Elle before her. But he couldn’t argue with Misty. It wasn’t fair to try and convince her of his fidelity, his loyalty. Nor could he lie and say he didn’t care about Elle. So the decent thing to do was to let Misty do what was right for her. They’d been leading up to this since the minute he’d found out about the baby and told Misty.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and damn, he really meant it. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’re a good woman.”
“And you’re a good man.” She gave him a closed-lip smile. “But sometimes that isn’t enough. It’s not enough to want this to work. You have to feel it.”
“You’re right.” Tucker felt defeated. It didn’t seem like there was a woman alive who wanted to fight for him. Not Elle. Not Kara. Not Misty. They all just quit the field immediately.
Maybe this was his future. Being alone, like always. Being a weekend dad and defining his life mainly by his job. It wasn’t a bad existence. He could be happy with that. But he had to admit, he wanted more.
“And I discovered I am far more jealous than I feel comfortable with,” Misty said. “I’m not enjoying any of this.”
Tucker winced. “Let me take you home,” he said.
“Thank you.”
They drove in silence. When he got to her apartment, he tried to hug her but she held her hand up, frowning. “Please don’t.”
That made him feel like garbage but he just nodded.
She got out. As he watched her head up the walkway his phone rang. It was Elle.
“Hello?” It seemed fitting that Elle would call him as he watched what he thought was his future disappear into her apartment.
“I wanted to say thank you for everything, Tucker. That viewing was a shit show and I appreciate you suffering through it.”
“Of course. I’m heading to the funeral now.” With Misty done with him, there was no reason he couldn’t show up and support the Harts through the rest of the day.
“You don’t have to do that. I’m sure Misty is about over all this nonsense.”
“Misty just broke up with me.” There was no point in beating around the bush. “She doesn’t relish the idea of sharing me.”
“Oh.” Elle sounded stunned. “Well, damn, I’m sorry.”
She sounded sincere.
“Thanks. I’ll live.” He wanted to make some platitude about maybe it was for the best, but he felt too annoyed to say that. He was annoyed that the woman who was at least partially responsible for his inability to keep a relationship intact was not at all interested in being with him.
He didn’t like feeling sorry for himself, yet sure enough, he was. “It’s for the best. Makes things less complicated. Do you want me to pick you up and take you to the funeral?” There was no reason not to now.
There was a pause and then she said, “Yes. I would really, really like that, thank you.”
“Where are you? I’m on my way now.” He didn’t even bother to go to his house, just turned around and headed back. In five minutes he was back at the funeral home picking her up.
She got into the truck, and after he shut her door and went around to the driver’s side and climbed in, she gave him an unexpected smile.
“Hey, what are you doing for Christmas?” she asked him out of the blue. “It’s only a week away.”
The unexpected subject made him rub his forehead. “Normally I see my folks but they’re going on a cruise. So I don’t know. I guess I’ll do some work around the house.” Damn, that sounded pathetic as hell.
“Come to Nashville,” she said, her voice husky. “We’ll all be at Jolene’s and you’re more than welcome.”
For a few seconds, he didn’t know what to say. He was just sitting, wishing he knew what the hell was going on in her head. Trying to do the right thing. Being Mr. Practical, as Elle had called him.
He was done with being practical and nice and supportive and selfless. He wanted a woman who would fight for him. He wanted to be important enough that she would lose her head, forget about every other man she’d ever met, not give a shit about complications or roadblocks. He wanted that with Elle. He wanted her with a tight, hard, burning ache deep down in his gut, his cock, his heart.
Telling her wasn’t going to ruin a damn thing that hadn’t already been ruined. And this time he was going to be up-front. He was going to tell her and let her decide, not catch her off guard when she was half-asleep.
“Do you know what you’re asking me?” he said.
Her eyes were big and brimming with emotion, though which one he couldn’t say. “Yes, I do know exactly what I’m asking. But if it’s too soon after Misty, I understand.”
He reached out and ran his hand down her cheek. “That was over before it started, because she was smart enough to see that I cared about another woman far more than I should.”
When he leaned in she was already meeting him halfway. Taking her mouth was natural, satisfying. Like coming home. It was a brief kiss, but she sighed into him and it brought all his emotions straight to the surface. She made him happy.
“That woman wants you to come to Nashville for Christmas,” Elle said. “A whole lot.”
“If I come to Nashville I’m staying in your bed,” he said. “And I don’t plan on being polite about it.”
She sucked in her breath.
“So think long and hard about that before we do this. I mean it, Elle.” There was no way he could spend a holiday with her, all cozy and nostalgic, and not have another taste of her. “I want you. All of you.”
“You do?” He had never thought of Elle as uncertain, but she looked doubtful as she spoke. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted. What you want.”
What he always wanted—her. “You heard me. You don’t have to give me an answer now because I know it’s been a stressful few days and I don’t want to add to that. But just think about it. Think about how much I want you and how good I can make you feel.”
“I don’t need to think about it. It’s all I’ve been thinking about for five weeks.” Her voice was husky, intrigued. Flirtatious. “Let’s do it, Jason Michael Tucker.”
They were. They were going to do everything.
“I’ll be there, then.”
No one cried at the funeral. Not even Mama.
Elle wanted to leave. Everything inside her wanted to bolt, to just get into her car and drive far away from the cemetery, from the mumbling words of the preacher, and out of this hellhole town she’d grown up in. It wasn’t a bad town, unless you had been a Hart kid. Wounds she’d thought had healed had been torn open by the fact that their mother had made them return here and made them stand there at Billy Hart’s grave in a fake show of emotion.
Fake to her anyway.
Elle hadn’t stayed in touch with anyone from high school except for Tucker. She hadn’t gotten along with the girls in school the way Jolene had. Jolene had been a cheerleader and involved in school plays. Shane had played football. But Elle, she’d watched people. That had been her high school activity. Mostly she had spent time alone in her room or the woods, dyeing her hair, playing with makeup, listening to angsty music like Nirvana, which was not cool in her country town ten years after Kurt Cobain’s death.
And she had spent time with Tucker.
She reached for him now, instinctively, her fingers numb from the cold. She’d forgotten gloves. Tucker’s right arm was around her, and he held her hand with his left, keeping her close against him. In a way, she almost thought she’d been stronger at seventeen than she was now. For the woman who had always prided herself on being free-spirited, rootless, unwilling to be anything but independent, she felt more vulnerable now than she had then. In those days, she’d had a healthy dose of attitude toward those who had turned a blind eye to her mother’s plight, and had been confident she would get away and be successful. Running around with Tucker, learning to drive stick shift in his truck, fishing, sneaking into a bar in the next town over, she had been ballsy. The wild child Tucker referred to.
These days, she felt weak, dependent. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.
Tucker bent over and murmured in her ear. “You okay?”
“This is the longest damn funeral ever,” she muttered back. She was tired. Cold. Hungry. Angry. She was also having a hard time looking at that hole in the ground and feeling any sort of compassion for the man who had given her half her DNA. It was causing a swirl of emotion about her own impending parenthood. Would she be a lousy parent like her father? Or a caring one like her mother? Given that she shared Billy’s natural cynicism, it scared her. It really did.
“If you want to leave, I’ll take you to the car.”
Since he towered over her, Tucker was hunched way over to keep his voice low. Elle knew they were probably attracting attention. She looked at his face, and saw the concern it held. She felt guilty for being relieved that Misty was out of the picture. She had bristled when she’d seen the woman at the funeral home earlier, mostly because she had thought to herself that it was something she would never have done. Show up at the funeral of her boyfriend’s knocked-up ex’s father? Oh, hell no. Elle wouldn’t have done it. Misty was definitely a better woman than she—and frankly, a better fit for Tucker.
But he was here with her, and she was grateful. “No, I can stick it out.”
He was coming home with her for Christmas. She’d meant it as a way for them to hang out, talk about forthcoming plans, maybe pick a baby name. Sort out how they would handle this new reality.
Tucker had made it clear he had a whole lot more in mind.
Without hesitation she had agreed to his terms. They were already so far deep into being connected to each other forever, she figured there was no reason she couldn’t get a little lovin’ at the same time.
As they finally turned away from the gravesite and started walking across the frozen ground to the parking lot, she realized she and her father had a vital trait in common.
Billy had never regretted a goddamn thing and neither did she.
She was going to own her choices, and first and foremost that included the morning she had let Tucker talk her out of her panties.
Tucker kissed the top of her head as he helped her into the car.
Even that simple gesture, friendly, not flirty, made her body tingle in awareness. She watched him go around the front of the truck and reminded herself—no regrets.
“Are you shitting me?” Tucker’s cousin River said, pausing in the middle of lifting one of his atomic hot wings to his mouth. “You knocked up Elle Hart? How did that happen?”
Tucker had been avoiding this conversation with everyone, including his parents. He hadn’t wanted to throw a monkey wrench into their cruise, but then it had occurred to him that now that Misty had dumped him, she might not keep quiet about the pregnancy. It was a small town. He had fessed up to his parents on the phone earlier, and now he was coming clean with River, who was more like a brother than a cousin since they’d grown up two doors down from each other.
The astonishment on River’s face was annoying though. “See, a boy really likes a girl and he tells her she’s pretty and they kiss and then they have a baby.” Tucker rolled his eyes. “What do you mean, how did this happen? We had sex.”
River threw a nasty grease-stained napkin at him from across the table. “I figured out that much, you prick. I meant, since when are you slipping Elle your salami?”
“You sound like you’re eighteen.” Tucker took a sip of his beer and eyed his own destroyed basket of wings. His stomach was full yet he felt unfulfilled. He was antsy. He was going to Nashville in three days and it couldn’t come soon enough. “You know we’ve kept in touch all these years. I see her from time to time.” That was all he needed to say as far as he was concerned.
“I guess you see a whole lot of her.” River raised his eyebrows up and down.
His cousin was a little shorter than he was, but the main difference in their appearance was that River had blue eyes. Girls had been falling for those eyes since they’d been kids, and it had annoyed the shit out of Tucker when they were growing up. River had gotten a lot more play than he had. Of course, he’d really only ever wanted attention from Elle. Clearly, not a whole hell of a lot had changed.
“She’s due in July,” he said. It was still mind-boggling. A baby. Damn.
“Did your parents freak out?”
“No. I mean, I’m twenty-nine. What can they really say?” They had been surprised, to say the least. But after the initial shock, they had expressed some reserved enthusiasm. His parents weren’t overly emotional–type people.
“Yeah, but your mom never liked Elle.”
“That’s because my mom thought I was going to run away from home to join Elle in Nashville. I think she knows that isn’t going to happen at this point.” Though sometimes, when Tucker was lying in bed at night alone, imagining Elle stumbling out of bed to get their crying baby, he wanted to.
“So, like, now what?” River flagged down the waitress. “Can we get two more beers here? Thanks.” He winked. “You look like you need it.”
“I guess I’ll be a weekend father. I’m going to Nashville for Christmas. Elle and I will iron out some details.”
“Do you still get to nail her, or what? How does that work?”
Trust his cousin to fixate on the sex. “Are you going through a dry spell or something? Why are you so damn concerned about my sex life with Elle?”
“What? Can’t a guy show interest in your life? I’m being a friend.”
“You’re being a pervert.”
River laughed. “True that. But I always thought Elle would be like a mystical creature in bed. So damn snarky and sassy. I wouldn’t want to date her, but I sure would like to—”
Tucker kicked his cousin under the table, right in the shin. Hard. “Watch it.” That wasn’t even funny. He wasn’t going to tolerate his cousin talking about Elle like she was free territory.
“Ow. Damn, Tuck. Someone is a little possessive.” River dropped the grin and gave him a rare serious moment. “What I don’t get is why aren’t you two just together?”
He didn’t know the answer to that. He really didn’t. Other than what he’d been telling himself for twelve years. “We’re just friends.”
“Friends don’t get friends knocked up.”
Tucker took a swig of his beer when the waitress plunked it down in front of him. She barely glanced at him, busy ogling River. “Well, hell, River, why didn’t you tell me that two months ago? I didn’t know.” He rolled his eyes at his cousin.
Yet he was mostly defensive because he knew he was going to hear this over and over again during the next months and he didn’t have a better answer.
“Too late now, idiot.” River raised his own beer bottle and said, “Cheers. Here’s to condom-free sex for the next few months.”
Tucker couldn’t help but laugh. He clinked his own bottle against River’s. The thought of having Elle with nothing between them was an intoxicating thought. He couldn’t get to Nashville fast enough. “Amen, cousin.”